Every time people force themselves to carry on with a book they're not enjoying, they reinforce the idea that reading is a duty.

I don't even feel as if I'm the center of my own world, so how am I supposed to feel as though I'm the center of anyone else's?

Yes, yes, I know all the jokes. What else could I have expected at Highbury? But I went to Chelsea and to Tottenham and to Rangers, and saw the same thing: that the natural state of a football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score.

Everything's complicated, even those things that seem flat in their bleakness or sadness.

You need as much ballast as possible to stop you from floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, or locations, or supporting actors, and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then?

What harm has he ever done to you?' 'You know what harm he's done me. He offended me with his terrible taste.

So it's not about what you do. It can't be, can it? It has to be about how you are, how you love, how you treat yourself and those around you, and that's where I get eaten up.